The human gastrointestinal tract (stomach-intestine tract) is a setting for acute and/or chronic diseases, for example in the form of pathologically altered areas on the internal wall of the stomach or intestine that bleed sporadically or continuously, for example as part of inflammatory or neoplastic processes.
Of particular importance are inflammatory intestinal diseases such as Crohn disease, Ulcerative Colitis, neuroendocrine tumors of the small intestine, tumors in general or else even small tissue alterations such as polyps, the majority of which degenerate malignantly over time. Often these pathological tissue alterations, referred to below as (superficial) lesions, appear in many places in the same patient and normally develop into malignant intestinal cancers if their growth is not stopped early enough by removal or other means of destruction, for example by electrocoagulation or coagulation by means of laser light.
This destruction of the aforementioned lesions by coagulation is performed according to the state of the art by use of an endoscope or an endorobot. An endorobot having a laser suitable for ablation is described in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,240,312 B1. The navigation of such an endorobot inside the body is implemented by a magnetic-field steering system by use of an endorobot steering device and is presented in detail in the patent DE 101 42 253 C1.